Burt is a dynamic organizational leader with an uncommon combination of financial discipline, strategic vision, and operational expertise. He excels in helping businesses grow by assessing performance, capabilities, challenges and opportunities, and developing turnaround plans that quickly produce desired results. With over 25 years of experience leading the financial and operational functions of small to medium-sized companies, Burt has proven his ability to help companies improve EBITDA and raise valuations throughout his career. His commitment to utilize his core skills of financial discipline and team-centric leadership, combined with his passion for driving change, ensure powerful and sustainable results.

Burt’s specialties include: strategic planning, process reengineering, EBITDA growth, budgeting and forecasting, contract negotiation, working capital optimization, debt financing and risk management, among others. He also excels in team leadership, having led teams of five to 75 in understanding the challenges and issues at hand, and gaining their commitment to the changes required to reach best-in-class performance. Before creating New Life CFO in October of 2013, Burt served in a number of executive positions, including CEO, CFO, COO, VP of Operations and Controller, working for companies including EFG Companies, Montgomery Coscia Greilich, Corporate Floors, ReSource Flooring Group, Fleet Capital, Fujitsu, PepsiCo and Coopers & Lybrand CPAs.

Burt’s passion is to use his gifts of financial, strategic and operational management to serve others. He created New Life CFO in order to enable growing companies to meet their Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs). By guiding clients through challenges and providing dedicated support, he allows them to focus on using their own gifts to do what they love — not what they have to do.

Burt F. Copeland
CFO Since 1998
[email protected]
(214) 315-2275 cell

Deborah has more than 30 years of financial and operational experience in multiple industries, including commercial real estate, franchise relations and finance, banking, automotive, restaurant, and manufacturing. She thrives on solving complex business challenges and achieving goals regardless of or despite the economic environment.

Naturally curious, Deborah brings a unique blend of emotional intelligence and qualitative and quantitative analysis to every situation. She credits her 13-year tenure with GE Capital for melding natural tendencies with learned ones. Having earned a Green Belt and holding client-centric leadership roles in risk management, strategic marketing, and business development, data was integral to every decision. Among several interesting projects, Deborah’s favorite was the due diligence and integration of a $3B REIT acquisition, which honed skills in creating strategic alliances and building high-performance teams that outperformed expectations. GE is also where Deborah found her passion for working with entrepreneurs.

After co-founding a national platform to expand JPMorgan Chase’s influence in franchise industries, Deborah left corporate America for family-owned, entrepreneurial companies where she most recently held Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer roles for a food manufacturing organization and an automotive dealership.

Deborah partners with her peers and clients to accomplish their dreams. With demonstrated proficiency managing fiscal health, aligning business, customer, and employee objectives, and leveraging tools such as EOS and Culture Index, she helps others achieve optimal operational and financial results through various economic cycles.

Deborah earned a BA from The Catholic University of America, an MBA from Liberty International University, and holds real estate licenses in two states.

Deborah R. Barker
[email protected]
(312) 405-3612

Wayne has 26 years of financial acumen, operational controls, sales leadership and system implementations. He has served in the Big Four Accounting and held both Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operational Officer roles in financial services and automotive industries. He has led in both startup companies and as CFO in companies that have grown from $50 million to almost $200 million in revenues and all the while ensuring adequate capital to handle the growth.

Wayne’s core passions relate to customers and taking great care of them. Both external and internal customers are all important and critical to the success of a company. He enjoys engaging in these relationships and creating win-win opportunities. He also believes doing the “right thing” with customers will pay off in the long run.

Wayne’s experiences include working with owners and executives across all business lines to ensure financial integrity and operational ethics. He has successfully staffed and managed both small and large accounting groups, built strategic plans, forecasting and financial reporting. He has created and maintained strong relationships with banks and vendors to ensure best pricing and leveraging, enabling the growth of businesses.

Wayne enjoys getting into the details and yet grasps the big picture to ensure that the company is headed in the right direction. He is a firm believer in using analytics to identify challenging areas and solving them through group buy-in and moving forward to reach profitability.

Wayne is a CPA and received his BSBA in Accounting from The Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

Brian has spent over 20 years successfully leading Finance, FP&A and Business Process. His experience ranges from small to large private companies owned individually or private equity as well as large public companies across multiple industries. His approach to driving positive results for all stakeholders is to partner with the executive teams, business development and operational leadership. The goal being to understand the key drivers and dependencies for each area of the business to create visibility and promote positive change. Digging into the financial results and operations to understand the previous decisions behind the numbers then allows for bringing alignment so decisions going forward will deliver on the company’s values and strategy.

Brian understands the value of relationships and taking great care to provide the support needed both professionally and personally. Great vision and values are front and center to creating an environment where business can thrive, and employees can grow and reap those rewards. Partnering with leadership to identify challenges and implement the change needed to operate efficiently and reach or expand profitability is critical. Whether it be determining the best metrics that drive the business, to strategic planning and modeling, to operational overhauls or process creation, Brian has a passion to help businesses succeed.

Brian enjoys spending time with his large growing family and grandchildren, his church community, running and sports in general.

Sandeep has been working in the Finance industry for over 8 years. A graduate of the Oxford Brookes University, with a BSc in Applied Accounting, she began her career with a renowned credit rating agency.
Sandeep has worked with various financial institutions in four different countries. In 2018, she moved to Texas and began working for New Life CFO. She is a proven Financial Analyst with extensive experience in vetting the best decision-driving KPIs and monitoring related performance. Sandeep also has considerable experience in performing What-If analyses on projections, technology integrations, and training and development. She has a passion for helping companies set up and implement financial optimization programs.
In her spare time, Sandeep enjoys recreational activities and giving back to society.

For 15+ years, Susie has been working in the Finance and Accounting industry. A graduate of the University of Colorado, she began her career as a Tax and Audit Staff Accountant for a regional CPA firm in 2005. She obtained her CPA license in Colorado in 2007 and ventured further into the Audit and Attestation path after being promoted to Audit Senior. In 2008, she left the world of public accounting to do tax and bookkeeping work on her own for small businesses across a variety of industries. A move to Texas in 2015 offered her the opportunity to do fractional Controller work for new and bigger companies and industries. Her experience is in small businesses in a variety of industries, ranging from Event and Hospitality to Manufacturing and Technology, with Non-Profit and Government work sprinkled in along the way.

Her attestation experience lends a keen eye to details and a drive to improve internal controls and processes to help best protect and enhance businesses. She desires to create a meaningful relationship with all her clients. Keeping the books clean and accurate is just step one. Understanding the inner workings of you and your business is step two. She enjoys making the numbers talk to you in a way that you understand rather than just sending you spreadsheets every month. She cares about her clients and their success, viewing it as a partnership.

In her spare time, you will find Susie in the kitchen, volunteering with her local Cub Scout Pack, and soaking up as much time with her family as possible.

Lola has over 20 years of diverse marketing and operations experience with an expertise in insights, innovation, branding and brand management. In most of her roles, Lola has managed cross-functional teams of 12 – 50 in the development and execution of complex product, process and service innovations which she now leverages to optimize New Life CFO’s client experience. Her corporate and agency experience spans technology and agency start-ups, including her own marketing insights and innovation consultancy, as well as nonprofits and corporations like Aramark, Mission Foods and Borden Dairy/LALA U.S.

Her national awards include a national Reggie Award for a cause-related promotion on behalf of MADD and an IRI Pacesetter innovation award for Mission Life Balance Flour Tortillas.

Lola holds both a bachelor’s degree in marketing from The University of Akron and a Master of Business Administration from the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.

In her spare time, Lola enjoys traveling, gardening, cooking and spending time with her family.

For 20+ years Lewen has been a dedicated, energetic, cross-functional leader with proven results in his financial support to CEOs and other Senior Leadership members. His experience ranges from small to medium private companies to large public companies. He excels at assisting leaders maintain a healthy cash flow position, helping them to understand the profitability drivers in their businesses so they are making the best short and long-term decisions. Lewen enhances financial reporting capabilities and creates annual operating plans and quarterly forecasts that help these leaders achieve their company and personal goals. He has served companies in many industries including consulting, property management, insurance, construction, rewards & incentives and telecommunications.

His specialties include strategic planning, financial and KPI reporting and analysis, accounting and finance process improvements, budgeting and forecasting, client profitability, pricing and financial system implementations, among others. Before joining New Life CFO, Lewen spent 13 years at Parago, Inc. and Blackhawk Network where he held a Sr. Director position and had P&L responsibility for several companies simultaneously issuing more than $1 billion in annual incentives. His previous experience also includes 8 years of P&L planning and reporting responsibility for the U.S., European and Canadian operations at Vartec & Excel Communications.

His core values start with integrity and loyalty. He is here to serve and has a proven record of productive, high-quality results. He believes in truly being a partner with the companies he represents and helping them to each achieve their goals.

Lewen has an MBA from Louisiana State University and a BS of Accounting from Grambling State University.

Eric has spent the last 30+ years as a senior finance executive in industries ranging from radio broadcasting, out-of-home advertising, digital media, craft beer manufacturing to hospitality and several start-ups. His specialties are untangling complex problems and identifying opportunity and value. Not focused only on financial analysis and administration, Eric consistently poses new questions that lead to new discoveries about a company’s business operations, enabling either a problem solved or untapped value discovered.

Eric spent 16 years as SVP Finance/ CFO for four radio broadcasters, during which time he took the lead in taking Chancellor Broadcasting, Inc. public following a spate of acquisitions of 54 large market radio stations valued at $1.6 billion. After Chancellor’s $2.5 billion merger with Evergreen Media, Eric joined Capstar Broadcasting, Inc., where he led the due diligence for another $1 billion in radio station acquisitions and led the special projects team that invested in the development of new technologies to serve the company.

Eric’s finance experience also includes workouts and restructuring of debt and equity. At NextMedia Group, Inc., he restructured $325 million of public debt, which involved renegotiating covenants with a public debt syndicate of more than 60 lenders. He also has worked with a number of technology startups, including a wireless play to cover the 8-milelong Las Vegas Strip with a Wi-Fi canopy before Wi-Fi was ubiquitous.

Always interested in new challenges, Eric served for four years as CFO for a privately held company with a portfolio of restaurants, clubs, and various real estate properties throughout the Denver metro area, and two years as CFO of a historic craft brewery in downtown Denver. Eric and his wife, a Texas native, are raising three teenagers in Dallas.

Jim brings 40 years of corporate, investment and real estate banking finance experience as well as solid management team leadership as a Director and CFO. Jim has also bought and sold several small businesses over his career. He brings a passion for serving the private company sector and truly enjoys working with entrepreneurs and their teams to improve and build their businesses.

Jim has extensive industry experience across a diverse range of companies including investment and banking firms, commercial real estate, manufacturing, component supply, consumer goods, healthcare, plastics, road construction and retail, to name just a few.

Jim has been a CFO in firms that are in the fields of engineering, construction, consumer goods, home building as well as investment origination and management.

Jim has four grown children and one grandchild. He resides outside of Austin, TX, enjoying God’s creations.

Teddy has over 20 years of accounting experience. His areas of expertise include general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, month-end close, reconciliations, fixed assets, financial reporting, financial analysis, process improvements and SEC filings. He is a CPA with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting. He is also certified in Quickbooks Online. And he knows more computer applications than probably all of us combined!

Teddy lives in Sachse with his wife, two daughters and son. He LOVES soccer, follows the English Premier League and, specifically, Arsenal. He is also a big Dallas Cowboys fan.